Pages

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

An Evening With Daniel Mendelsohn

Last week I had the pleasure of meeting Joan Bingham, Vice President and Executive Editor at Grove/Atlantic Press. She held a dinner party at her Madison Avenue apartment once photographed for House Beautiful. It was an intimate dinner for fifteen eclectic writers, publishers and literary agents. After an exquisite meal prepared by chef Adrienne Adams, there was a talk back given by award-winning writer, critic and translator, Daniel Mendelsohn. He spoke about the booming genre of non-fiction memoir. He has dedicated a whole chapter to this subject in his recent book, Waiting For The Barbarians. The chapter is appropriately titled But Enough About Me, and in it Daniel covers everything from the ego-maniac self-obsession to the battle between what he referred to as "real reality" and the writer's perceived reality. In a post Million Little Pieces world it's a necessary conversation. For me it was a riveting evening and vital to read his book, since I am about to release my childhood memoir into the world....please be kind to me Daniel! I highly recommend any budding memoirist read Daniel's essay.